Seeing but not believing: Inside the business of 'deepfakes'

[icymist]

In a video seen by millions, a man that looks and sounds just like President Obama gives an address. But instead of a polished speech, he spouts out controversial opinions -- and even a curse word.

A split screen reveals that it's not our 44th president making these comments after all -- but actor and frequent Obama impersonator, Jordan Peele.

In a Buzzfeed production, Peele imitates Obama's voice with video manipulation to match. It's what's called a "deepfake" -- a video created with artificial intelligence used to convert video of real people into potentially damaging doppelgangers, appearing to say and do things the real people never actually did.

In this case, it's Peele and Buzzfeed using the technology to create an sort of PSA, and reveal their trick to the viewer at the end.

But experts fear that in the wrong hands, deepfakes could become the next frontier in fake news – and spark very real consequences.

https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/believing-inside-business-deepfakes/story?id=59731790

[AJT]

1. The technology is already in the wrong hands.

There are a lot of "technology mercenaries" out there willing to do that type of work for money.

[icymist]

2. Yup. And people need to know about it.

This article was the first I ever heard that just about anyone could do this.

[Kablooie]

3. Deepfakes can be done on a home computer.

Someone with a little computer knowledge can set it up fairly easily with online instructions.
We are going to have 15 year olds creating world changing fake videos in the near future.